The End of Oak Street Review
David Robert Mitchell, director of It Follows and Under the Silver Lake, is back with the best dinosaur movie since Jurassic Park.
As audiences, we’ve been starved of a good dinosaur movie in recent years. The first Jurassic World movie was pretty good but gradually went downhill after that. It’s no surprise that many directors don’t want to touch the dinosaur genre for fear of being compared to Jurassic Park (which they always will) and so there has seldom been any releases outside of that world. However, The End of Oak Street is it’s own new idea with a fresh lens that I didn’t even find myself thinking about Jurassic Park at any point during or after.
It takes places in 1982 and follows the Platt family; Denise (Anne Hathaway), Greg (Ewan McGregor) and their two kids Brian (Christian Convery) and Audrey (Maisy Stella). On a stormy night, a blinding white light fills their neighbourhood of Flowervale, and slowly, prehistoric creatures start flooding the streets. They soon realise, this light has moved their entire neighbourhood back in time and they must fight to survive and make it back to 1982. What ensues is a dramatic, tense, at times funny story with a fresh perspective and a real breath of fresh air into the dinosaur genre. It has some very interesting cinematography that sometimes felt out of place but I can always commend a director/DOP that wants to try something new, so as much as it didn’t always feel necessary, I applause the creativity. In particular, there was a one shot sequence that I absolutely loved, it was done well, it was well placed, and what followed it was one of the biggest ‘oh my god’ moments of the entire film.
The dinosaurs were ‘scientifically accurate’ if that is a phrase I can say? The T-Rex had feathers, there was a slimy snake thing that I’m not sure actually ever existed but was terrifying none the less and there were species of dinosaurs that haven’t even been on screen yet and I loved getting to see them.
Anne Hathaway is of course wonderful in this role as she is in every character she plays. She brings a real depth to the character early on in the movie that later lends itself to the arc she goes on to have. Personally, I love watching on her screen and between this and The Odyssey, she is having a year of stellar performances. Ewan McGregor is an actor we haven’t really seen much of in the last few years, his last project being Bleeding Love in which he played alongside his real life daughter Clara McGregor. However, he is the stand out in this movie. Admittedly, I am a big fan of his and pretty much love everything he does, but he really shines in The End of Oak Street. He plays Greg, a man struggling to make ends meet and keep his marriage from falling apart. He is harbouring secrets and working odd jobs to make money, and so clearly adores his family. Him and Hathaway play the almost estranged couple so beautifully and the film does really well to set up this idea before the chaos ensues to make for a really tense and emotional journey. Not to mention, McGregor runs around and jumps over fences in the tiniest pair of shorts I’ve ever seen.
I have yet to see either of David Robert Mitchell’s previous movies, but experiences The End of Oak Street made me want to. For the 90 minutes I sat in the cinema, I had fun and sometimes that is all you want from a movie, especially when it contains dinosaurs. If you are looking for an easy, enjoyable watch this month, The End of Oak Street is the one to see.